Tuesday, September 28, 2010

A lady I wanted to remember her, that's why I blog her

There is one sales staff in one of the branches under my care; she is extremely stubborn and unreasonable. She sort of to get rid of the previous sales manager and thought that she would be able to get promoted. Hahaha…she is dreaming! First, her education level is not up to fit into this position. Secondly, she can’t even speak or understand English (she refused to meet the customer who speak English.) Lastly, she is not cunning enough.
First, she was in LCCI (diploma in accounting), she was with the company as an account clerk for 2years, after that had transferred to sales department as a sales executive. The 2 years in account department, she is still no idea about the company system and sales procedures. Therefore she put the blame on the ex-sales manager for the mistakes she had done. Let me elaborate clearly, this is a very small branch, 3 sales (including of the Sales Manager), 1 account, 2 customer services cum logistic, and 1 technician based in the office and 5 operators in the production floor.
When I first took over the branch, I thought she has been bullied by the ex-sales manager. Therefore I kind of support her in whatever she is asking for. 2 days later, I have finally seen her true faces. My goodness, I have never work with a so called “experienced sales”! The way she handle her daily job and also her customer are so unprofessional and stubborn.
Here are the incidents I have facing ever since I took over in mid-Jul:
1. Routine check about her sales progress. I wanna know about the current situation about one of the key customer. The answer she gave is “I dunno, Alex (Sales manager) spoke with the customer (an Indian) in english, I couldn’t understand at all.”
2. All the quotation out thru her hands to her customers (sometimes, customer service will handle on behalf of her), will certainly returned back with “price-too-high”! 98% of the returns with “customers expect price”. She will said “XX company is giving the customer this price (customer’s expected price)”.
- Haha! In her market there is only one competitor which is XX Company. There is no others like XY, XZ, AA, BB…etc. Everytime comes back with telling me XX Company give this price, XX Company provide 3 days delivery….etc.
3. All her orders are “TOP URGENT”! Initially, I really thought so, I even slotted her orders to in front of others (those that came in earlier than her). Disappointedly, I found the goods that production had rushed for her still place nicely in the store for few days already.
4. The reason I said she is not cunning enough…..
- She thought that she will get promote after the sales manager left. However, my CEO has the intention to merge these two branches, hence have me to look after this small branch. She wanted to get rid of me, the method she was using is trying to bad-mouth me and brain washed the two new sales. One is a fresh-grad, another new sales is an experience guy. She was kind of asking for support her idea of talking to the CEO for not letting me to look after them. The fresh-grad guy said to her “If you not letting Amy to support this branch, how are we gonna cope? Can our branch able to support if we have this and that order in?” Her answer to this new guy is “………..(she keep quiet)……”. What a joke! She is actually using the “housewife” (gossiping) method to deal in the office politics. Hahaha…..really a joke to me.

5. She has been resigned for 3 times within 1.5 months. First resign, she thought she can use resign to threaten my CEO to get rid of me and promote her. My CEO asked her to stay, will take 6 months to evaluate their performance (3 of them), to consider to promote her to Sales Manager. However, this sales manager has to still report to Amy.
2nd time of resign, she is not willing to take out the customers to / for the new sales.
3rd time, her try to threaten me not to take out the customers from her has failed, she then give 3rd time resignation to try again. Sigh……

There is more about her to share, unfortunately, I really think that the more I typed about her, it makes me mood turn bad! Better stop now. I know you will puzzle why a staff with a lot of problem is still sustain here. The reason that we currently cannot let her go is due to some circumstances, one of it is we scare she will join the XX company (owned by the ex-sales manager)………which I don’t really think so. Whoever took her to put under the company, she will become the liability of the company. Sigh…what to do? This is a CINAMAN company!